Finished for now…

Okay, I’m a long way from being truly finished with The Truth About T.M.S., but I am calling the proposal finished for now. I e-mailed it off to my novel writing group this morning, so we’ll see what they have to say about it. Preteen likes it a lot and is anxious to read more (and BELIEVE ME, just because he’s my child does NOT mean he automatically likes everything I write…he definitely does not. And he’s not afraid to tell me when he doesn’t). I still need to get input from Teen, too.

I also e-mailed Caryn Wiseman, the agent who is looking at a partial of I Am Anna Winkler, to tell her I was just about ready to send this proposal off. I hesitated about doing that because I was afraid it would look like I was bugging her for an answer. But The Truth About T.M.S. is actually closer to what I “normally” write than I Am Anna Winkler is, and I think I’m going to have a contract on that long before I have one for I Am Anna Winkler. I’ve at least been talking to my editor about The Truth About T.M.S.…in fact, the subject was her idea. So in the end I decided a brief note to Caryn wasn’t a bad thing…and if she thinks it is, then maybe she’s not the agent for me.

So now I have to start on my proposal for the sequel to Do You Know the Monkey Man. Actually, what I need to do first is REREAD Do You Know the Monkey Man. And that will be hard for me. I don’t like to read my books once they’ve been published because I see things I want to change. The only one of my published books I’ve ever read is Trading Places with Tank Talbott, and again, I read it right before I wrote Tank Talbott’s Guide to Girls. I’ll probably reread Do You Know the Monkey Man while I wait for comments from my novel group. Then I’ll tweak The Truth About T.M.S. one more time, send it off, and get to work on the sequel to Do You Know the Monkey Man while I wait for a decision on The Truth About T.M.S. That’s my plan anyway.

I am equally excited about both books. I want to be working on both of them right now. But I can really only focus on one novel at a time. So whichever one I get a contract for first is the one I will do first. If I actually have downtime in there (i.e. I finish both proposals but haven’t heard from either editor yet), I still have two scripts to write for Reader’s Theatre this summer…and I’d like to get back to I Am Anna Winkler. So, that’s my plan…